News and Notes from the Weekend

BABY FLAMES COLLECT GOALIES

The Flames organization continued to collect goaltenders at a torrid pace this past week. After signing Leland Irving on July 27, the Abbotsford Heat followed suit with a pair of signings. The baby Flames inked veteran netminder Barry Brust on August 8 and Danny Taylor on August 10.

The signings give the Flames quite a few goalies in their pro development system. Under professional agreements for 2012-13 are Miikka Kiprusoff, Henrik Karlsson, Leland Irving, Joni Ortio, Barry Brust and Danny Taylor. However, Ortio will be on loan to TPS Turku of SM-Liiga for next season, while both Karlsson and Irving would need to pass through waivers to play in the AHL.

The Abbotsford Heat begin play in early October.

BUTLER ON CBA TALKS

Chris Butler (Resolute/Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)

As the National Hockey League Players’ Association prepares its rebuttal to the NHL owners’ initial CBA proposal, the individual players have begun to weigh in via social media.

“CBA thoughts…The OWNERS design a business model that allowed the players to increase compensation by growing the game/increasing revenue”

“#theplayers have grown the game to the best/most exciting/most profitable it’s been, now the OWNERS want their money back. #hedgeyourbets.”

The NHLPA is expected to submit its proposal to the NHL on Tuesday.

IGINLA’S PUCK POSSESSION

The excellent Puck Stops Here blog over at Kuklas Korner has been looking at some advanced stats metrics. Lately they’ve taken a look at Jarome Iginla’s puck possession numbers. The numbers are not pretty.

“This past season he had the tenth worst team and zone adjusted Corsi rating in the league. To put things simply, when Iginla was on the ice Calgary’s opponents dominated the game. They controlled the puck. This is particularly bad because he led the Flames in ice time among forwards, so there was a considerable amount of time the other team controlled the puck.”

They go on to detail how, surprise, Jarome Iginla is a one-dimensional player (that dimension being offense.) They also offer a rather sobering assessment of the present situation.

“Calgary lacks the depth to play him in a reduced role where he would likely be much more useful.”

“I would rank him ahead of Sundin in terms of their overall careers” Sundin was a first ballot and he retired in a much more competitive decade than Iginla.

Iginla could finish in the Top 20 in scoring in history in a decade that will have produced no one even close in terms of offensive output. Honestly Iginla is a lock for First Ballot for the sole fact that who else is retiring in 5 years that put up nearly as many points???

Of Current Active Players in scoring only Jaromir Jagr, Teemu Selanne, Nicklas Lidstrom, Daniel Alfredsson and Joe Thornton are ahead the last two by mere points. Considering they all will retire at least five years before Iginla (Other than Thorton who will retire after) you are out of your mind to think he won’t be first ballot. By the time Iginla is eligable they may not have had a first ballot for five years.

Selanne is an example of playing into his 40’s….. Haha.. So then what was Lidstrom, Roberts, Recci, Jagr, Ray Whitney, Alfredsson and all of the ever increasing amount of 40+ year olds in the past ten years thanks to improved training methods of which Iginla has always excelled.

iggy is more of a liability than an asset huge contract dollars at the current time, deminished skills . how could any gm ply a trade for a third line winger at this stage. doesnt make any sense. the flames are cursed with iggy being the albatross.

Wow, you are a real Iggy hater. He got his contract when he was the best player in the league and it runs out this year. Compared to the contracts players are getting lately, that was a dream contract and I would still say he is only mildly over-paid, if at all.

To say he is a 3rd line winger is just uneducated. Seriously, he has scored more than 30 goals a year for the last 11 years. Even if he only scored 20-25 goals a year he would still be a 2nd line complementary scorer on 80% of teams.

At the very least, he should get a very good prospect and a 1st rnd. pick if he goes at the deadline. I would say he would get a solid, young bottom 6er as well.

500 goals, 1000 points, 30+ goals in 10+ years, captain of a Canadian market for a decade, scoring title, MVP, two gold medals, Memorial Cup, World Junior gold, World Championship gold, World Cup gold.

And to further Mr. Pike, I would rather see him retire as a Flame. IMO, he deserves it.

Bashing and negativity isn’t going to change his game. Getting better coaching and players to handle the heavys will open it up for him. Considering what he has had to work with through the years, it is amazing what has been achieved.

So what if you “miss out” on perceived assets for a trade that doesn’t exist if he retires here.

I am a fan and have been since the team was moved to Calgary, win or lose. I would rather have them win but not at the expense of simply discarding a player that has been here his whole career when he could have left in his prime and won somewhere else. No let’s just dump him simply because he is getting older and you are done with him, he is only an asset.

But don’t fret all of you negative posters, I am sure if he read these comments you will get your wish. I wouldn’t want to stay where I wasn’t wanted anymore either. If I am him however, I might just pull a Mats Sundin.

Deserves what? Iginla is well compensated, he’s not ‘owed’ or ‘deserved’ anything that he hasn’t already received.

And “so what if you miss out on assets?” Sorry, but that’s pretty much how you run a team into the ground.

Seriously, what does Iginla retiring in Calgary do to improve the team? Bottom line, he is an asset. Once past the first round with him and that’s not going to change anytime soon, so yeah, get whatever you can, the Iginla era is dead.

And I could care less if he reads these comments, what would his 7 million/year feelings be hurt? Who cares? Fanboy hero worship has no place in asset management.

For me the deciding factor on whether Iginla is or is not a 1st ballot hall of famer would be the graduating class of that year. In a year where there were other players who perhaps had not dominated the same way, or who also did not have Stanley Cup rings to their name, then I’d say he’d be a shoo-in.

If, however, he is eligible in a year with other dominant players, some of whom have championships, then my guess is he’d have to wait.

Then again, charisma and personality has a lot to do with it. Why do people like Dino Ciccarelli, Pat Burns and Glenn Anderson have to wait for years to get inducted? They were all more deserving than Mats Sundin, in my opinion. The voting members can be unpredictable.

When you adjust for scoring eras, Iggy has played in an era even lower scoring than Gordie Howe’s. He is already way past Cicarelli and Anderson and certainly has been more of a leader than either of those 2 guys.

I understand the concept of a HOFer “raising the guys around you” but the flip side of that is it is hard to soar with eagles when you work with turkeys. Think of all of the Hall of Fame players Glenn Anderson got to work with.

Note I didn’t even bother to compare him to Cam Neely who played in a high scoring era and had a short career and he got in, which in my view was ridiculous.

I don’t see that move as a win for Holland. Perhaps barely a break-even. I could be wrong, but the Red Wings are going to be needing greater contributions from their depth players now and will need their prospects and younger players to move up into positions of greater responsibility with the roster holes opening up.

Bouwmeester answers a question on the roster, but that trade would only mean creating more holes, from my perspective.

Good points. Although, in spite of all of this debate the whole thing is moot because none of us, to the best of my knowledge, has a vote. I guess we’ll have to wait about five to eight years for Iginla’s first eligibility to see what comes to pass.

Anderson’s post-season performances are what I think most of his supporters felt qualified him for entry. Six Stanley Cups as a resonable contributor would have to be considered as well.

Anderson was clutch but one could argue the guy was never more than the 4th best forward on his team on any given year, let alone among the top 2 or 3 in the league for any extended period. He certainly contributed to 6 Cups, but ask yourself this – how many Cups does he win and would Glenn Anderson be a Hall of Famer if he plays from 1997-2012 on either the Edmonton Oilers or the Calgary Flames ?